Well, I actually managed to make contact with a human at Tillis’s office and I asked what the Senator is doing about Trump denying the Supreme Court on the matter of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the guy deported to El Salvador by mistake.

The guy said it’s an Executive vs. Judicial branch matter and the Senator couldn’t do anything about it. In the middle of me saying I didn’t believe that was possible, he switched over to “hello? hello? I can’t hear you.” and then HUNG UP ON ME.

I get that it’s probably some new intern stuck answering phones but WOW his skills were minimal. For some very low definition of “minimal”. I’ll be interested to learn whether the interns’ people skills improve over time.

(I called back to ask my 2nd question: what is the Senator doing about tariffs, over and above co-sponsoring a bill guaranteed not to pass? Guess who got routed straight to voicemail?)

Ooh, 70 people! BIIIIG savings!

«March 31, 2025: After a meeting with DOGE, the entire staff of the IMLS – roughly 70 people – has been put on administrative leave for the next 90 days.»

https://5calls.org/issue/institute-museum-library-services-imls-ala/

Excerpts from an email from my spice seller of choice (zero plastic, fully recyclable/biodegradable-in-less-than-a-millenium shipping materials, regularly tested for heavy metals):

«The proposed new tariff on imported vanilla? 47%. Madagascar exports tons of vanilla to the US (over 2,000 metric tons to be exact!). We don’t grow vanilla in the U.S. at scale—so of course we import it. That’s how global trade works. We send out things like cloud storage and app development—they send us delicious goodies. This is what is currently being called a “trade deficit” since the services the US provides are not included in this calculation.

…

I’m not telling you to panic-buy vanilla (unless your landlord takes payment in baked goods, I don’t recommend stocking up like it’s rent money). In uncertain times like this, it’s a good time to only buy what you need. And considering that financial and environmental sustainability is one of our core tenants, we’d never encourage you to buy more than necessary.»

https://gneissspice.com/ if you feel like patronizing them.

https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/millions-stood-up-april-5-hands-off-day-of-action/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

«Some of those people may not agree with us on everything. We are going to need to value what we have in common when it comes to these important things and love or at least tolerate what makes us different. After all we’re fighting an attack on diversity.  »

…

«I think Americans grew complacent after almost 250 years of stable government, of thinking that things could not stray too far from what they always had been, that the laws would hold up, the systems would hold up. But they’re breakable and they’re being broken, and it’s breaking the world, from human rights to the climate to the global economy. All this is happening because American voters stayed home. Trump got 31% of the vote, just a hair more than Kamala Harris, and 39% stayed home. A tiny bit more turnout, a tiny bit more participation, a tiny bit more concern, and we would not be here today, because those criminals would not be in the White House. We slept through the threat to our democracy, too many of us, but the destruction is waking a lot of people up. Stay awake.»

Thank you, Rebecca Solnit. I’ve been saying this for a while. “A Republic, if you can keep it.” This something my dad, God rest his soul, was wrong about. (That, and global warming.)

« I know we can do this. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. And can is not will. Whether we will or not depends on whether and how we show up.

I talk a lot about hope. Hope is not optimism. Optimism says everything will be fine. Hope says we don’t know what will happen but if we show up, if we stand up, we can maybe seize the chances. Hope makes friends with uncertainty, takes it by the hand and guides it toward our desires, hope grabs the possibilities. Hope recognizes the future is made in the present, it’s made by what we do and don’t do.»

3.5% of the population in *sustained* involvement will do the trick.

Honestly, if they manage to capture this in the show, I’ll be impressed.

«Another tech walked up to me. “Um, SecUnit, we need someone to help move this cabinet—”

“Then you should find someone to do that for you.” I was not in the mood.

“Well, it’s in a small space and JollyBaby can’t fit.” They gestured to the cargo bot looming over us.

“Its name is not JollyBaby.” Tell me its name is not JollyBaby. It was five meters tall sitting in a crouch and looked like the mobile version of something you used to dig mining shafts.

JollyBaby broadcast to the feed: ID=JollyBaby. The other cargo bots and everything in the bay with a processing capability larger than a drone all immediately pinged it back, and added amusement sigils, like it was a stupid private joke.

I said, “You have to be shitting me.” I already wanted to walk out an airlock and this didn’t help. (The only thing worse than humans infantilizing bots was bots infantilizing themselves.)

JollyBaby secured a private connection with me and sent: Re: previous message=joke. And it added its actual ID, which was its hard feed address. So it was a stupid private joke. I don’t think that made it any better.»

62% through “Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries Book 6)” by Martha Wells.

I feel like there’s a lot going on here. (Of course, it might just seem like a lot to my sheltered, privileged self.)

https://www.umnews.org/en/news/building-peace-in-a-dangerously-polarized-us

Really great summary of the Peace Conference I attended, with this excellent paragraph by United Methodist News:

«Christ demonstrated, the bishop stressed, that peacemaking does not mean keeping silent or accommodating injustice.»

(Bunch of other good stuff in that article, too.)

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/12/pre-authorization/#is-not-a-guarantee-of-payment

«The theory that monopolies will defend us from other monopolies is a disastrous example of “the old lady who swallowed a fly” strategy. For the strategy to work, everyone has to be a monopolist, otherwise they’ll get steamrollered – on their wages, their care, or their compensation.

And of course, patients don’t get to merge to monopoly (that’s what governments are for, and we know how Blue Cross feels about single payer care). Workers don’t get to merge to monopoly either (that’s what unions are for, and no one hates a union more than a health care monopolist).

Blue Cross’s position – the position of the entire for-profit health industry – is that they should be able to grow as large as they can, at the expense of us, the patients. In other words, they are economic tumors – so no wonder they’re on the side of breast cancer.»

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/opinion/aging-tips-getting-older.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4.BouN.VmHjPKvSspT_&smid=url-share (gift)

Seems like generally good advice.

Are we back?